I frowned. “What’s keeping him bound then?”
“Love of his mother,” Violet said with a soft little sigh. “We saw her face in there, ye see. The boy will’nae leave for anyone else but his father.”
I trembled. “Seeing her ghost could shatter him.” I gazed at Zane’s handsome face with my heart in my throat, tracing the stubble of his jaw with a light scrape of my fingernail.
My soul ached, but not just for him. For me too, selfish as it was. Seeing his Elle could set his healing process all the way back. And yes, I’d been ready to give him up if need be, but I would be a liar if I said it wouldn’t hurt to witness what seeing her would do to him.
Elle wouldn’t be real, not the Elle in Illusion. But sometimes, an illusion was just as powerful as reality. Sometimes, it was even stronger. I should know, because Illusion had very nearly wrecked me after Eerie had passed.
Mrrow. I recognized Lapis’ sweet purr and shook.
Looking at my blue-eyed familiar, I whispered, “Will you guide us to your brother, Lapis?”
She nodded before bumping my thigh with her head. I scratched her behind the ear.
I didn’t want to go into Illusion again. It was a dangerous place for one’s soul, but I was also one of the only witches who could navigate its pathways and find my way safely home again.
Zane would need me, and Lapis and Edward would need Zane.
I swallowed hard, thinking about what might happen if he and I were still in Illusion when the sun rose. Inside a mirror world or no, the curse would still strike me true.
I held his cold cheek in my palm, my eyes roving over his handsome features as I committed them to memory. He would loathe me forever after this, I was sure.
He’d meant to kiss me earlier, and I’d almost told him what I really was.
Well, once he knew, there would be no kisses for me.
Save for one.
This one.
Leaning over, I feathered my lips over his. They were firm and smooth and decidedly masculine, with lingering traces of plum wine. Like Sleeping Beauty coming to life after Prince Philip’s kiss, Zane’s long dark lashes flickered once before gently opening.
The pain in them tore at my soul.
“Are you ready to find your son, Mr. Huntington?”
He frowned and gripped my wrist in a tight hold, bearing down so hard it was almost painful, but I didn’t move. I deserved whatever censure he had to throw at me.
“Is he alright, Zinnia? I need to know that he’s alright.”
I couldn’t seem to help myself. I traced my finger over the cleft in his jaw and nodded. “Right as rain, I vow it. But he’ll need you to find his way back.”
Caught between the groggy moment of sleep and slowly coming awake, Zane didn’t move, only shuddered into my touch. But I knew the instant he realized where he was and what had just been done to him, because his entire body tensed.
I finally, gently, extricated myself from him. He stood a moment later, dusting off his pants. I ached for him terribly. I should have never let him get too close to me. Now I’d gone and done it good.
And I had no one to blame for this mess but me.
I held my hand out to him, which he took, but his grip was tentative as though he would pull back at any second. Aunty Violet pulled the mirror out from where it’d been resting on the coffee table.
Lapis meowed. She was ready to part the realms with me.
“What you’re going to see now,” I said to Zane softly, “may shock you, but I need you to trust me and know that everything I do is to bring your son home safely. Do you trust me, Zane?”
His jaw worked from side to side, and his nostrils flared. I could tell he was anxious and that he was remembering what Aunt Cinth had done. But he gripped my hand tighter, and his deep commanding voice said, “God help me, Zinnia, but I do. I do trust you.”
My heart trembled to hear him say it. Unable to look back at him, I gestured with my chin toward Mirror. “Then, Lapis, you know what to do.”
With a swish of her tail she hunched and, with one powerful jump, sailed through the mirror’s glossy surface.
A startled sound spilled off Zane’s tongue, but he said nothing.
Tugging him behind me, I took a deep breath and said, “Now, this might feel cold for a second. Just breathe.”
Then we jumped into the swirling chaos of Illusion.
Zane Huntington III
I SLAMMED THROUGH A wall of ice. The impact was so hard and jarring that all the air rushed out of my lungs in one big whoosh. I rested against a slab of something so cold I thought I might never feel warm again.
My toes tingled and my head spun.
Mrrow.
I frowned, trying to understand why I’d just heard a cat.
Then the memories came back in a tidal wave. I opened my eyes and looked around me. I saw not snow, but a world that could hardly be real.
There was a sky. Trees. Grass. Flowers. Birds flapping in the air. Woodland creatures scampering through the open fields. There was even a red-dirt path beneath my hands and—I winced as I looked up—a sun in the sky.
There was only one problem with all of this. This world had only two dimensions, like a child had built it out of reams of construction paper.
I frowned, sure I’d gone crazy or that this was a nightmare—a really, really bad one.
Mrrow?
This time, when I looked at the cat, it was looking directly at me. Unusual blue eyes were clearly asking me a question that I couldn’t for the life of me decipher.
Zinnia’s husky voice cut through my thoughts. “He’s all right.”
I swallowed hard. “What’s happening to me?”
The cat’s tail curled as she nodded, and in some part of my mind still able to reason, I noticed that, unlike everything else, she was three-dimensional. I looked at Zinnia, half expecting to see a paper monstrosity kneeling beside me, but she was as real as she’d always been.
She was still dressed in that far-too-sexy gown she’d been wearing earlier. But her neck, which had been naked before, was now circled with a heavy silver chain, and a glowing dark-blue pendant rested snug between her pushed up breasts.
I didn’t believe any of what I was seeing. How could I? But my heart ached like someone had driven a hot poker straight through it. My boy was gone.
“My boy,” I grunted.
“He is safe, Zane. I promise you. We will find him.”
“This isn’t real.” I shook my head, crawling slowly to my knees, still feeling the ache in my bones from the jarring impact of earlier.
She held her hand out to me, offering to help me stand. I wanted to ignore it. I was angry at her, though I knew it wasn’t her fault. I was angry at myself too. But mostly, I was confused and scared.
I didn’t have to pinch myself to be convinced this place—unbelievable as it was—was real. I could never have dreamed up anything like this. Not the sights. Not the smells.
It smelled of roses everywhere. It smelled of her.
She curled her fingers into a small fist and laid it gently against her side. I wanted to apologize, to tell her it wasn’t her fault, but an ugly part of me couldn’t shake the thought that if I hadn’t trusted her aunts, none of this would have happened.
I swallowed hard, hating myself, as I slowly stood to my feet and dusted myself off.
She looked up toward the paper sun. Origami-style cranes winged over our heads. I clamped down on my tongue.
“This place is unnatural,” I mumbled, thinking I’d said it low enough that she wouldn’t have heard, but she shrugged.
“That’s why it’s called Illusion. The world here is what you make it. What you see is Edward’s creation.”
I frowned and looked around with new eyes. “Edward thought this up?”
A part of me still fought against believing this was real, but I was slowly beginning to accept that maybe I wasn’t all crazy after all.
She smiled. “Yes. Rather ad
orable, honestly.”
“Why is he here, Zinnia? Why are we here?”
Her lips thinned, and for a second, I thought she might not answer. But with a large sigh, she finally said, “I didn’t think anything of it when Edward told me earlier that he’d seen her.”
Goose bumps flashed over me the moment she said it, recalling myself how unusual that comment had been from the lips of a five-year-old boy.
“He saw his mother, your wife, in the mirror.” She said it slowly, almost reluctantly.
I gave a violent, involuntary jerk at the mention of Elle. What was she saying, exactly? That Elle was here? In this place? In Illusion?
She shook her head as she wrung her fingers together. “No, your wife isn’t really here, not her true spirit. Mirror shows you what you most wish to see.”
Grasping this idea, forcing myself to accept it as truth, was like trying to swallow a boulder. I felt angry, upset, and so darn confused that it was all I could do not to throw a fit like an enraged gorilla.
I pinched the bridge of my nose, telling myself to take deep breaths in and out. When I finally felt like I could speak without saying something unforgivably stupid, I said, “If you knew this mirror could do that, then why the hell would you leave it out on that table where anyone could find it?”
I thought I’d gotten my temper under control, but judging by the gleam of hurt in her eyes, I knew I’d done a piss poor job of it. I worked my jaw from side to side.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, saying the apology because I knew I needed to, though I didn’t feel all that sorry yet.
“No, I’m sorry.” She tossed her arm out. “You’re right. You have every reason to be angry with me, but I didn’t leave Mirror out. She’s been locked up for the past century. I have no idea—”
“Wait. Dear God.” I held up my hand, stalling her words. “A century? I’m trying, Zinnia. I’m trying so hard not to call you insane or crazy or... I don’t know what.” I balled my fists. “You have to see how I’m struggling to accept any of this, right? I just want to find my son. Where is he?”
She licked her lips, looking down at the cat twining around her ankles. “Lapis will find Malachite’s scent. She’ll lead us directly to them.”
“Why would that cat be with my son? How can you be sure of that?”
“Because.” She grunted and cleared her throat. “Because Malachite targeted your son. He needs him for something. But he won’t leave Edward. He’s not cruel.”
I heard a note of doubt creep into her words, and she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, worrying it.
I huffed, staring up at the paper sun, offended that it hadn’t turned into the real thing already. I was pissed. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be real.
And yet my son was most definitely missing. I was standing in a world built of paper with a cat that was now meowing and pointing with its front paw down the path.
I squeezed my eyes shut. I thought I’d made progress, thought I’d been doing better. But this was almost too much for me to accept.
How could this be real? How?
Zinnia’s voice was a low whisper cutting through my thoughts. “Lapis says we must hurry and follow the scent as it’s starting to fade.”
I snorted and laughed, but there was nothing funny about any of this. “Oh, your cat said that, did she? Then by all means, witch, let’s go.”
I glowered, hating myself for what I was doing. Hating the way her beautiful eyes had suddenly dimmed and the way her full red lips had tipped downward. I was being so rude that I wanted to kick my own ass.
I clamped my jaw down and refused to speak another word. We walked in silence for what felt like miles, my mind awhirl with thought after thought after thought.
If Zinnia was to be believed, my wife was here. Or something like her. And because of that, my son had decided to come find her. A cat had brought him for reasons even Zinnia wasn’t sure of.
I slapped at the trunk of a lone paper tree as thick as my chest and as tall as the clouds. There was a sharp groan, the sound very much like that of a splintering tree, before it crashed to the paper grass beneath, raising a cloud of papery dust in its wake.
I sneezed.
Dammit, I hated this place.
Chapter 10
Zinnia Rose
THE DEEPER WE WALKED into the woods, the more the scenery began to shift. It was apparent Edward was nervous. The bucolic scenery of before was now dark and spooky. Everything was still built of paper but with a more sinister edge to it. Night was falling in the woods, and a green fog curled around our feet. Stars like silvery daggers winked from the light of the pock-marked, soft-blue paper moon.
The trees were skeletal, gnarled black fingers reaching toward the skies. Paper owls hidden between their branches gazed at us with glowing yellow eyes. And streamers of translucent paper moss dangled like bits of flesh from branch tips.
Giant black paper spiders with burning red eyes scuttled between the bushes, and somewhere behind us, I heard the clomping of paper hooves.
I was so grateful my aunties had closed off the other portals that would lead to even more worlds. Illusion had infinite dimensions and possibilities. If the boy hadn’t been penned in this realm, the chances of us ever finding him again would have been slim to none.
I shivered at how very easily Zane could become like Old Man Tinker. I hated that I’d disappointed him, hated that I’d caused him such pain. I’d only wanted to help him.
And now, here I was, trapped in Illusion with a man who hated the very sight of me, searching for his lost child, who was literally chasing after an illusion. And it was only an hour away from sunrise.
Illusion’s time didn’t affect me. It could be day here, but so long as it was night on Earth, I would not shift. However, I felt tingles run down my spine. My flesh prickled and itched. I would have been lucky if I even had an hour left.
We’re close. I smell her. Lapis’s words floated in my head.
Cats could not talk except in Illusion, a world where anything was possible. I nodded, feeling glum but grateful that she hadn’t spoken out loud. Considering how swimmingly Mr. Huntington was handling this—which was to say, not at all—I doubted he would like hearing my sweet kitty’s voice.
How much longer, Lapis? I feel itchy in my own skin. The curse will take me soon.
I know, Mother. I am hurrying, I promise. They’re just a few miles away at most.
I scratched at my arm, wincing at the unyielding itch coursing through me. If I wasn’t careful, I could literally scratch my skin right off. It was the curse coming to life, rising from its temporary slumber, transforming me from the inside out. Soon, I would know nothing other than the instinct.
I took a steadying breath. The very last thing I wanted was to be trapped in Illusion for another ten hours. I would have no memory of where I’d been or what I’d done, making it all the harder to find my way back. Not impossible, but harder certainly. I sighed.
Why did your brother do this, do you know?
I felt a wave of tenderness flash through me, and then Lapis spoke softly. Malachite has told me nothing. I am sorry he hurt you. I will deal with him later.
“I’m sorry.”
I hadn’t expected to hear the gruffly-spoken word, and I jumped, thinking for half a second that Lapis had decided to be verbal after all.
But it was Zane, walking beside me and staring down at me with a look of pained hurt and regret.
“I should never have said those things to you.”
I shrugged, twisting my lips as I sneakily scratched at my other arm. The relief was only temporary, but I couldn’t stop scratching. There were some nights when I woke up with long, vertical, bloody welts that took days to heal.
“I deserved it. I promised you your son would be safe, and I didn’t keep my word.”
He glanced to his right, eyeing a group of glowing jack-o-lanterns lining the paper dirt trail. “Edward does have a fanciful imagina
tion. Elle always said he would make a terrific writer someday.”
I was surprised to hear him mention his wife, considering why we were here. I didn’t know what to say other than I was sorry.
“Don’t be.” He shook his head. “She and I, we had a great life, and I wouldn’t change any of it.” He inhaled deeply. “Truth is, Zinnia, coming to Blue Moon Bay felt fated from the very moment we got behind the wheel. I’m not saying I understand this place, or that I like it, but Edward’s come alive here. I’ve seen it. I just want to make sure he’s safe. Because... because I need to know that I’m capable, that I can be a good father without her to guide me. That I would have made her proud of me.”
I stopped and turned, causing him to bump into me as I looked up into his face. “You haven’t failed her. You’re one of the best father’s I’ve ever met.”
He snorted. “Yeah. I lost my son in a paper world in a town full of witches.” One corner of his lips twitched, telling me he meant it mostly as a joke.
I chuckled low. “Not full. There are other types of folk here too.”
Lapis meowed, telling me that I could walk and talk at the same time. I closed my eyes. I hadn’t wanted him to learn the truth of Blue Moon Bay quite like this, but I doubted very much I would find him in town after I woke up from my curse, anyway.
Taking a deep breath, I decided now was as good a time as any to tell him the truth.
“The stories are real. Shifters. Ghosts. Vampires. Ghouls. Witches. Why, even Bigfoot. In fact, he and his wife are the proprietors of the Haunted Boot.”
Zane’s eyes grew wide in his face, and he shook his head softly. “Son of a monkey’s uncle. Are you saying that Oswald is the infamous Bigfoot? I don’t believe it.”
I chuckled. “You mean to tell me you never noticed the bird’s dogs? They’re rather hard to miss.”
He frowned. “Bird’s dogs? What in the world does that—”
Snorting softly, I shook my head. “I forget, sometimes, what century I’m in. The man’s feet.”
I could tell he wanted me to clarify, but there was far too much about Blue Moon that he didn’t know. Telling him all of it would take years.
Cookies, Curses, and Kisses Page 12
